That Castalian current,
Reciprocity, is not blocked!
By correspondence: beyond my eye
Lies, a larger reality.
Beyond calling, beyond seeing
Like a certain long la
Between my mouth and temptation
A mile of distance...
Blessed are the longitudes,
The latitudes of oblivions and strata!
Whose expanse moves into you
Like a note, like a moan
Prolonging itself in you,
Like an echo of a granite heart
Beating into you:
Don’t look and don’t listen and don’t be—
Not that I need it in black
And white—in chalk on a board!
Nearly beyond range
Of my soul, beyond range of ennui—
... As a literary conceit
The final card is dealt.
Expanse, expanse
Now you are—a blank wall!
Кастальскому току,
Взаимность, заторов не ставь!
Заочность: за оком
Лежащая, вящая явь.
Заустно, заглазно
Как некое долгое la
Меж ртом и соблазном
Версту расстояния для…
Блаженны длинноты,
Широты забвений и зон!
Пространством как нотой
В тебя удаляясь, как стон
В тебе удлиняясь,
Как эхо в гранитную грудь
В тебя ударяясь:
Не видь и не слышь и не будь —
Не надо мне белым
По чёрному — мелом доски!
Почти за пределом
Души, за пределом тоски —
…Словесного чванства
Последняя карта сдана.
Пространство, пространство
Ты нынче — глухая стена!
«Bound for your distant homeland's shore / You left behind a foreign clime / How long I wept before your eyes, / That unforgotten, grievous time. / Hands growing colder as they tried / To hold you back with me a spell, / My cry prayed you and heaven not / To break the anguish of farewel...»
«Oh if it's true that in the night / When living souls repose abed / And fallen beams of lunar light / Slide onto headstones of the dead... / Oh if it's true that then till day / The graves are opened in the earth, / I call the shade of Layla forth! / Come back, my dear! This way! This ...»
«Unfettered element! Farewell / Before me now one final time / You roll again that skyblue swell, / And sparkle with a pride sublime. Like an old friend's regretful sigh, / Like calls of fare-you-well through tears, / Your summoning sound, your sounding cry, / One final time now fills my...»
«Whatever heavy load it carries, / The wagon's light on steppe and street. / Grey Time, the coachman, never wearies / And never leaves the driver's seat. At dawn we jump inside the wagon, / Quite happy for our necks to break. / Scorning all soft delight and languor, / We yell "Get going,...»